Meta Platforms Inc. has apologised after its automated security system mistakenly suspended the Instagram account of the No Kings coalition, behind the nationwide pro-democracy during a demonstrations in the United States.
The technology company also provided a detailed explanation of the disruption, which occurred as the group intensified its early-voting campaign ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
Meta’s engineering team found that the account’s reading activity triggered the security system.
The company’s vice president of communications, Andy Stone, said in a social media post on Sunday that a tool powered by Anthropic PBC’s Claude was accessing profiles, posts and hashtags at about four times the normal rate in intense bursts on Saturday.
These abrupt, high-volume, sequential requests in a short period resembled automated bot traffic rather than an ordinary human browsing our systems,” Stone said.
Meta said an automated review conducted about an hour later found that the account should not have been suspended and restored it. However, restoring administrative access took longer.
“We want to reiterate our sincere apology for the error,” Stone said.
The No Kings Coalition, an anti-Trump group, said its Instagram page was unavailable for about 90 minutes on Saturday, while organisers remained locked out even after the account became publicly visible again.
The coalition said full administrative access to the account was restored at 5:33 p.m. New York time on Saturday.
